Mike Argento: Norwegians all fired up over firewood TV show

If this were some kind of polite National Geographic documentary, it would begin with the narrator intoning, "Norway is a land of contrasts."

But it isn't so it begins with this: Norway is bat-guano crazy.

I know, when you think about the weirdest countries on the planet, you probably don't pause on Norway. It seems kind of benign, tucked away up there in northwestern Europe with the rest of the Scandinavian countries, the kind of places mostly defined by cross-country skiing. Ikea furniture and crippling depression brought on by spending much of the year in a frozen hellscape that resembles the Roger Dean artwork on Yes album covers.

That may have something to do with Norway's weirdness. But really, it's caused by wood. Yes, Norwegian wood. John Lennon prophesized it.

Now, many of you probably don't think of wood when you think of Norway, unless that Beatles song is playing on the Muzak. More often than not, you associate Norway with death metal, a genre of music that, no disrespect intended, sounds like someone killing a goat with a jackhammer.

Norway is famous for the scary creepiness of its death metal and its death metal artists. Not long ago, I saw a documentary titled "Until the Light Takes Us," which chronicled the early days of the genre's scene in Norway.

Advertisement

The star of the film was a guy named Varg Vikernes, who had been a leader and guitar player with the seminal Norwegian black metal band Mayhem, best known for the show where its lead singer committed suicide on stage and for the fact that Vikernes left the band after being arrested for stabbing the other guitarist to death. Oh, and setting fire to three churches.

Anyway, in the documentary, Vikernes, interviewed in prison, doesn't come across as nuts at all - until he does and then, well... One of his pet issues, one of the things that really drives him, one of the things that inspires whatever it is he does, is, and I'm serious here, is a fear of kebab shops opening on Norway's famous fjords.

Kebab shops.

On the fjords.

I had no idea anyone would even think about opening any kind of shop on the fjords. I've seen pictures of the fjords, and they really don't look like optimal locations for kebab shops, or any kind of shops.

But there you have it.

That is his personal obsession, though.

The country's national obsession - and again, I'm being serious here - is firewood.

Last week, The New York Times reported that one of the most popular - and controversial - TV shows in Norway was a 12-hour program about firewood.

Twelve hours.

About firewood.

The show was called, "National Firewood Night," and was based on a best-selling book titled "Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood - and the Soul of Wood Burning."

The Times reported that the show "consisted mostly of people in parkas chatting and chopping in the woods and then eight hours of a fire burning in a fireplace."

There was also stacking, which is what stirred controversy.

The first four hours of the show were dedicated to sawing, splitting and stacking firewood, the Times reported, which sounds excessive until you get to the eight-hour-long fire.

And, according to the viewers, that was the most exciting part of the show.

The fire, the Times reported, burned all night long. And a million people - twenty percent of Norway's population - stayed up all night to watch it.

The Times reported, "Fresh wood was added through the hours by an NRK photographer named Ingrid Tangstad Hatlevoll, aided by viewers who sent advice via Facebook on where exactly to place it."

The photographer's face never appeared on screen, the paper reported, "but occasionally her hands could be seen putting logs in the fireplace, or cooking sausages or marshmallows on sticks."

Among the viewers was someone identified as neisa36 on a newspaper website's discussion forum. The viewer wrote, "I couldn't go to bed because I was so excited. When will they add new logs? Just before I managed to tear myself away, they must have opened the flue a little, because just then the flames shot a little higher. I'm not being ironic. For some reason, this broadcast was very calming and very exciting at the same time."

If the fire was the best part of the show, the most controversial part was the stacking. Norwegians, apparently, have passionate views about stacking firewood.

"We received about 60 text messages from people complaining about the stacking in the program," Lars Mytting, who wrote the book that inspired the show, told the Times. "Fifty percent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down.

"One thing that really divides Norway is bark."

Norwegians will argue about it for hours. Mytting told the Times, "What I've learned is that you should not ask a Norwegian what he likes about firewood, but how he does it - because that is how he reveals himself. You can tell a lot about a person from his firewood stack."

In this country, we're divided by deeply rooted political beliefs, stubborn prejudices and other vital issues touching on our core beliefs and philosophies.

In Norway, it's bark.

That's not weird at all.

Mike Argento's column appears Mondays and Fridays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints. Reach him at mike@ydr.com or 771-2046. Read more Argento columns at www.ydr.com/mike. Or follow him on Twitter at FnMikeArgento.